Kyoto the Trip! Part 5 - Antiquing Kyoto Style

While we were wandering through the shopping arcades of Kyoto on the second night, we came across a shop window full of antique books and woodblock prints. This isn’t the sort of thing that excites most people, but I quite like old books – especially old Japanese books – and woodblock prints. I have a small collection of them stored somewhere in my parent’s garage back in Canada that I accumulated during my previous stay in Japan.

I really like woodblock prints. They are colorful and geared towards the masses of the time rather than wealthy art collectors. They were a source of inspiration for European impressionist painters in the 19th century, ironically at a time when they were completely going out of fashion in Japan. I never pass up a chance to look at a store that has some, though they are a hard commodity to find in Fukuoka.

So into the store we ventured.The shop was called Daishodo, located in the Teramachi shopping arcade. For an old-book lover like myself, it is an amazing place. Wall to wall books and prints meticulously decorating every square inch of the cozy 2 floor shop. The store proprietor – a congenial looking man his 50s (I guess) - sat at his little desk reading, oblivious to the presence of the customers who had just walked in.

Score one for Daishodo.

We (OK, more I) spent about an hour poring over the selection. Usually old book stores in Japan are about 95% crap and 5% good stuff (if that), but not Daishodo. Everything in the store was good stuff, all of it carefully labeled with the artist’s name and date and organized in a very pleasing way.It was intimidating as a lot of the good stuff had prices running into the thousands of dollars on them. Happily though they had a wide range of choices for even the (ahem) more economically conscious woodblock print collectors among us. And so I walked out of the store with some new possessions in tow and a lighter wallet in my pocket. Here is what I got:

Toyokuni the Third (1852)

Hirosada (1861)

Yoshiiku (1867)

Kunichika (1882)

(?) (1897)

Unknown (1771)

I was pretty happy with the haul. For 400 yen each they also had some of these:

I think these were just pictures they cut out of an old book (the date said 1771). They are actually a pretty cool and cheap piece of home decor though. They fit perfectly into 100 yen shop picture frames (which is what it is in). I picked up four of the nicer pictures and, together with the frames, the whole set only cost about 20 bucks:So next time you are in Kyoto and you happen to be a woodblock print or antique book lover, head over to Daishodo.

More pictures and stories of our Kyoto holiday in the next post.

Related Posts:
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 1 - Tofukuji and Sanjusangendo
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 2 - Kiyomizu Temple and Maruyama Koen
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 3 - Ryoanji and Ninnaji
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 4 - Shopping Arcades by Night
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 6 - Cute Buddhist Statues
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 7 - Ohara and the Wrath of Mount Hiei
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 8 - Kyoto Station vs. Kyoto Tower

Kyoto the Trip! Part 4 - Shopping Arcades by Night

After spending the afternoon of our second day visiting temples, we headed back into central Kyoto to experience some of the city life.

One nice thing about Kyoto is that if you get tired of looking at the historical stuff, the downtown area has a bustling and vibrant feel to it. In the Kawaramachi area between Shijo and Sanjo where our hotel was located there are numerous arcades packed with interesting shops and interesting shoppers. We headed down into these in search of dinner and whatever else they had.
I love shopping arcades. Its a bit hard to convey the experience of walking through one in words or even pictures, so I made a 3 minute video of walking through the crowded and lively Nishiki Koji Dori arcade that you can watch here.

As you can see from the video, these arcades are a million times more interesting than the bland shopping malls that, regrettably, have been popping up all over the place here in the past decade or two. It is one of the things I'm kind of disappointed with Fukuoka about. We've only got one shopping arcade that is really busy -Shintencho - and it isn't particularly big. The other ones (like the one in Nakasu leading to Canal City) have a kind of dead feel to them.

Kyoto's shopping arcades though are brilliant. They stretch on in all directions for as far as the eye can see, packed with shoppers all the way. They have tons of independent little shops. Some good, some not so good, but all interesting. They barely get a passing mention in most guide books (if that) but I think they are one of the best attractions which Kyoto has to offer.

Bizarre features are not in short supply. Like airplanes being used as facades atop entrance ways:
Giant burritos, or Om-rices or whatever this is:
And mechanical crabs overlooking gift shops:
Some of the shops look quite old:
While others have a refreshingly "shiny" feel to them:
There are a number of tiny temples facing onto the shopping arcades here and there:
Enter their gates and you are transported in mere seconds from the hustle and bustle of the bright shopping arcade:
To the lonely and eerily quiet sight of an urban graveyard only metres away:
We ended up having dinner in a Yakitori restaurant that night. It was quite good, though I didn't take any pictures and can't remember the name of the place. Much merriment was had though. We actually spent quite a bit of time over the following couple of days wandering around the area.

Continued in the next post.

Related Posts:
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 1 - Tofukuji and Sanjusangendo
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 2 - Kiyomizu Temple and Maruyama Koen
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 3 - Ryoanji and Ninnaji
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 5 - Antiquing Kyoto Style
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 6 - Cute Buddhist Statues
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 7 - Ohara and the Wrath of Mount Hiei
- Kyoto the Trip! Part 8 - Kyoto Station vs. Kyoto Tower